Faces of GUM

I was very interested to read Kaia Roast’s article about boosting confidence in Girls’ Ultimate after YCC. I think she hit on some great ideas, and I won’t rehash them here. (Read her article if you haven’t!) What strikes me, however, is the feeling that we’re all still very much forging our own path here, both in women’s ultimate and in women’s sports in general. I think there’s still plenty of room for anyone who wants to create content in coverage of women in our sport. Obviously, we’ll have some here, but I’d love to read any (every) other blog that wants to tell stories, or talk about strategy. If you’re interested in being a part of that, start doing it. If you’re not sure how, reach out. One of my favorite parts of our community is that we’re willing to offer assistance.

As a photographer, one of the things I can try to do more of is make sure that I’m looking for opportunities to cover women’s ultimate when I choose the work I want to do each season. I think I do an ok job, but in writing this, I realized that I haven’t seen our local club team play in two years, which is absurd. (Hey Minneapolis Pop, wanna work together next year?)

With this project, I was inspired by a photo shoot that was released before the Women’s World Cup this summer, which had some young female athletes show their “game faces.” I thought it would be a fun thing for our U-16 girls to do as part of their GUM clinic day, and Heather Ann agreed. The only direction I offered the girls was that game faces don’t have to be serious and that it was ok to pose in a group of two or more if they didn’t want to pose alone. (That’s what teammates are good for, right?) I have to say, these young women absolutely rocked it, and I’m proud to present these photos to you.